Chapter 16: Watching the Sunrise, Su Qinghe Cried
Gu Yifan froze for a moment. He looked down at his chest.
Uh...
He found that a large patch of his shirt was soaked with Su Qinghe’s tears.
"Sheesh."
"I thought it was something serious!"
"It’s nothing. I’ll just wash it when I get home and it’ll be fine!"
He looked up, waved a hand dismissively at Su Qinghe, and smiled.
"Or... or how about I wash it clean for you and give it back!"
Su Qinghe said after a moment of thought.
"???"
The moment the words left her mouth, Gu Yifan’s eyes widened. "Are you serious?"
"Mhm!"
"I’m the one who got your shirt dirty, after all!"
Su Qinghe said with a completely serious expression.
Gu Yifan: "..."
Seeing the earnest look on her small face, Gu Yifan was left speechless.
After holding it in for a long moment, he said faintly, "So you want me to go home shirtless..."
"Huh?"
Su Qinghe paused, her beautiful, slightly swollen, peach-blossom eyes wide with confusion.
*Whoosh.*
The next second, realization dawned, and her face instantly turned beet red.
She stammered, "I... I didn’t mean it like that... I just wanted to help wash your shirt, I wasn’t thinking..."
"Okay, okay, I know."
"But really, don’t worry about it. I’ll just throw it in the washing machine when I get home. It’s no trouble at all!"
Gu Yifan said, shaking his head helplessly.
"Oh, okay..."
Since he put it that way, Su Qinghe could only nod obediently.
But she still felt a little conflicted inside, and mostly embarrassed.
In just one day, Gu Yifan had seen her at her absolute worst.
’Honestly, I don’t even know why I told him so much.’
’Maybe it’s because I’ve had no one to talk to and I’ve been bottling it all up for too long?’
She thought about it and finally realized it probably all started that afternoon with the jump Gu Yifan took for her. From that moment on, she was destined to trust him completely.
"The sunrise, it’s here!"
Just as Su Qinghe’s thoughts were running wild, Gu Yifan spoke, his gaze fixed on the eastern sky.
Gu Yifan’s voice pulled her out of her reverie and back to reality.
Looking up into the distance, she saw the first hint of dawn—a fish-belly white—on the horizon. Fiery orange-red clouds spread out in all directions, just like the blush on a young girl’s cheeks.
As time passed, the brilliant sun, which had only been a sliver of pale light, struggled to pierce through the clouds. It rose slowly, as if carrying a heavy burden, climbing laboriously upward.
With every step it climbed, the clouds on the horizon grew a shade redder.
The vibrant crimson spread out from the sun like a single spark starting a prairie fire, and in no time, it had touched every cloud in the sky.
The multicolored morning clouds were like the little floral prints on a young girl’s dress, and the fiery sun was as lovely and pure as the girl wearing it.
A scene they thought only existed in textbooks was now unfolding right before their eyes.
A sun like fire!
This was the only thought in Gu Yifan and Su Qinghe’s minds.
............
「7:30 in the morning.」
The sunrise was over.
The sun was now fully visible, hanging high in the sky.
Standing on the mountaintop, they looked down and could see almost the entire landscape of Mountain City.
The mountain air was fresh in the morning, so they watched the scenery a while longer, breathing it in.
Despite having been up all night, neither of them felt particularly tired.
"Let’s go. Time to head down the mountain."
Gu Yifan took out his phone to check the time, then turned to Su Qinghe and spoke.
"Okay!"
Su Qinghe nodded and replied softly.
The night they had spent together had brought the two of them closer.
The initial awkwardness was gone.
Gu Yifan reached out and took Su Qinghe’s hand quite naturally, and she didn’t feel that anything was wrong with it.
Then, the two of them headed back down the mountain, following the path they had come up.
...
「8:15.」
Sure enough, going up the mountain was harder than coming down.
In less than an hour, the two had already returned to the foot of the mountain by the same path.
Gu Yifan hailed a cab and took Su Qinghe back to school. After they waved goodbye at the school gate, he went straight back to his own apartment complex.
It was now 10:30 in the morning. Gu Yifan hummed a little tune as he walked toward his apartment building, "I’m headin’ north, leaving the season with you... ’round the steering wheel, spinnin’ ’round my..."
「A few minutes later,」
「Outside apartment 305.」
*CLICK.*
He pulled the key from his pocket and opened his front door.
The moment the door opened, he saw his mom, Chen Dongmei, staring intently at him.
"Uh..." Gu Yifan jumped, startled.
The corner of his mouth twitched. He looked at his mom with a helpless expression and said, "Mom, what’s with the drama now?"
Chen Dongmei rolled her eyes at him and said irritably, "How come you’re back by yourself? Where’s Qinghe?"
"She went back to school!" Gu Yifan replied, a little confused.
"Oh!"
"Then what did you come back for?"
Chen Dongmei pouted, her face a mask of disdain.
Gu Yifan: "..."
’Right!’
He finally got it.
’So, her own biological son isn’t even as important as Su Qinghe! I should’ve just let her adopt Su Qinghe as her goddaughter!’ he thought, exasperated.
"Seriously, Mom, you’ve only met her once. Do you have to be so invested?"
"Why don’t you just make her your daughter-in-law while you’re at it!" Gu Yifan said offhandedly, feeling a bit jealous.
"Aha!"
Chen Dongmei’s eyes lit up. She looked at her son in surprise. "Well now, Comrade Xiaogu! You’ve finally seen the light, you little brat!"
"???"
Gu Yifan stared blankly at his overly excited mother.
"No, Mom, I was just kidding. You didn’t actually take that seriously, did you?!" he said, completely flabbergasted.
"Of course!"
"I took it seriously!"
"If you’ve got any guts, you’ll go win Qinghe over for me! Stop spending all your time chasing after that Han Ning girl, and quit pulling stunts like jumping off a building for love!"
Chen Dongmei shot him a glare, her expression dripping with contempt.
Her expression seemed to say: ’If you weren’t my son, I wouldn’t even give you a second glance if I saw you lying on the side of the road!’
Gu Yifan: "..."
"Come on, Mom, who told you I jumped off the building for Han Ning? I clearly just missed a step and fell, okay!"
"The fact that I wasn’t hurt just shows how incredibly lucky your son is, alright?!" he explained helplessly to his mother.
However, Chen Dongmei wasn’t buying any of it.
"Alright, alright!"
"No need to put on an act in front of me. You think I don’t know what you’re like?" Chen Dongmei glanced at him and waved her hand impatiently.
Of course, she wasn’t truly impatient.
She just didn’t want to listen to Gu Yifan’s "feeble excuses."
"I..."
Gu Yifan had just started to speak when his mother cut him off mercilessly. "Don’t you ’I...’ me. You’re my son. I changed your diapers; I know exactly what kind of crap you’re trying to pull."
"Instead of trying to fool me, you’d be better off thinking about how you’re going to face the weird looks from the neighbors and all the pointing and whispering from your classmates at school!"
Gu Yifan: "..."